It was supper-time. Eli's family were collected round the board; Margaret only was missing. To Catherine's surprise, Eli said he would wait a bit for her.
“Why, I told her you would not wait for the duke.”
“She is not the duke; she is a poor, good lass, that hath waited not minutes, but years, for a graceless son of mine. You can put the meat on the board all the same; then we can fall to, without farther loss o' time, when she does come.”
The smoking dishes smelt so savoury that Eli gave way. “She will come if we begin,” said he; “they always do, Come, sit ye down, Mistress Joan; y'are not here for a slave, I trow, but a guest. There, I hear a quick step off covers, and fall to.”
The covers were withdrawn, and the knives brandished.
Then burst into the room, not the expected Margaret, but a Dominican friar, livid with rage.
He was at the table in a moment, in front of Cornelis and Sybrandt, threw his tall body over the narrow table, and with two hands hovering above their shrinking heads, like eagles over a quarry, he cursed them by name, soul and body, in this world and the next. It was an age eloquent in curses; and this curse was so full, so minute, so blighting, blasting, withering, and tremendous, that I am afraid to put all the words on paper. “Cursed be the lips,” he shrieked, “which spoke the lie that Margaret was dead; may they rot before the grave, and kiss white-hot iron in hell thereafter; doubly cursed be the hands that changed those letters, and be they struck off by the hangman's knife, and handle hell fire for ever; thrice accursed be the cruel hearts that did conceive that damned lie, to part true love for ever; may they sicken and wither on earth joyless, loveless, hopeless; and wither to dust before their time; and burn in eternal fire,” He cursed the meat at their mouths and every atom of their bodies, from their hair to the soles of their feet. Then turning from the cowering, shuddering pair, who had almost hid themselves beneath the table, he tore a letter out of his bosom, and flung it down before his father.
“Read that, thou hard old man, that didst imprison thy son, read, and see what monsters thou hast brought into the world, The memory of my wrongs and hers dwell with you all for ever! I will meet you again at the judgment day; on earth ye will never see me more.”
And in a moment, as he had come, so he was gone, leaving them stiff, and cold, and white as statues round the smoking board.
And this was the sight that greeted Margaret's eyes and Jorian's—pale figures of men and women petrified around the untasted food, as Eastern poets feigned.
Margaret glanced her eye round, and gasped out, “Oh, joy! all here; no blood hath been shed. Oh, you cruel, cruel men! I thank God he hath not slain you.”
At sight of her Catherine gave an eloquent scream; then turned her head away. But Eli, who had just cast his eye over the false letter, and begun to understand it all, seeing the other victim come in at that very moment with her wrongs reflected in her sweet, pale face, started to his feet in a transport of rage, and shouted, “Stand clear, and let me get at the traitors, I'll hang for them,” And in a moment he whipped out his short sword, and fell upon them.
“Fly!” screamed Margaret. “Fly!”
They slipped howling under the table, and crawled out the other side.
But ere they could get to the door, the furious old man ran round and intercepted them. Catherine only screamed and wrung her hands; your notables are generally useless at such a time; and blood would certainly have flowed, but Margaret and Jorian seized the fiery old man's arms, and held them with all their might, whilst the pair got clear of the house; then they let him go; and he went vainly raging after them out into the street.
They were a furlong off, running like hares.
He hacked down the board on which their names were written, and brought it indoors, and flung it into the chimney-place. Catherine was sitting rocking herself with her apron over her head. Joan had run to her husband. Margaret had her arms round Catherine's neck; and pale and panting, was yet making efforts to comfort her.
But it was not to be done, “Oh, my poor children!” she cried. “Oh, miserable mother! 'Tis a mercy Kate was ill upstairs. There, I have lived to thank God for that!” she cried, with a fresh burst of sobs. “It would have killed her. He had better have stayed in Italy, as come home to curse his own flesh and blood and set us all by the ears.
“Oh, hold your chat, woman,” cried Eli angrily; “you are still on the side of the ill-doer, You are cheap served; your weakness made the rogues what they are; I was for correcting them in their youth: for sore ills, sharp remedies; but you still sided with their faults, and undermined me, and baffled wise severity. And you, Margaret, leave comforting her that ought rather to comfort you; for what is her hurt to yours? But she never had a grain of justice under her skin; and never will. So come thou to me, that am thy father from this hour.”
This was a command; so she kissed Catherine, and went tottering to him, and he put her on a chair beside him, and she laid her feeble head on his honest breast; but not a tear: it was too deep for that.
“Poor lamb,” said he. After a while—“Come, good folks,” said true Eli, in a broken voice, to Jorian and Joan, “we are in a little trouble, as you see; but that is no reason you should starve. For our Lady's sake, fall to; and add not to my grief the reputation of a churl. What the dickens!” added he, with a sudden ghastly attempt at stout-heartedness, “the more knaves I have the luck to get shut of, the more my need of true men and women, to help me clear the dish, and cheer mine eye with honest faces about me where else were gaps. Fall to, I do entreat ye.”
Catherine, sobbing, backed his request. Poor, simple, antique, hospitable souls! Jorian, whose appetite, especially since his illness, was very keen, was for acting on this hospitable invitation; but Joan whispered a word in his ear, and he instantly drew back, “Nay, I'll touch no meat that Holy Church hath cursed.”
“In sooth, I forgot,” said Eli apologetically. “My son, who was reared at my table, hath cursed my victuals. That seems strange. Well, what God wills, man must bow to.”
The supper was flung out into the yard.
Jorian took his wife home, and heavy sadness reigned in Eli's house that night.
Meantime, where was Clement?
Lying at full length upon the floor of the convent church, with his lips upon the lowest step of the altar, in an indescribable state of terror, misery, penitence, and self-abasement: through all which struggled gleams of joy that Margaret was alive.
Night fell and found him lying there weeping and praying; and morning would have found him there too; but he suddenly remembered that, absorbed in his own wrongs and Margaret's, he had committed another sin besides intemperate rage. He had neglected a dying man.
He rose instantly, groaning at his accumulated wickedness, and set out to repair the omission. The weather had changed; it was raining hard, and when he got clear of the town, he heard the wolves baying; they were on the foot, But Clement was himself again, or nearly; he thought little of danger or discomfort, having a shameful omission of religious duty to repair: he went stoutly forward through rain and darkness.
And as he went, he often beat his breast, and cried, “MEA CULPA! MEA CULPA!”
What that sensitive mind, and tender conscience, and loving heart, and religious soul, went through even in a few hours, under a situation so sudden and tremendous, is perhaps beyond the power of words to paint.
Fancy yourself the man; and then put yourself in his place! Were I to write a volume on it, we should have to come to that at last.
I shall relate his next two overt acts. They indicate his state of mind after the first fierce tempest of the soul had subsided. After spending the night with the dying hermit in giving and receiving holy consolations, he set out not for Rotterdam, but for Tergou. He went there to confront his fatal enemy the burgomaster, and by means of that parchment, whose history, by-the-by was itself a romance, to make him disgorge; and give Margaret her own.
Heated and dusty, he stopped at the fountain, and there began to eat his black bread and drink of the water. But in the middle of his frugal meal a female servant came running, and begged him to come and shrive her dying master, He returned the bread to his wallet, and followed her without a word.
She took him—to the Stadthouse.
He drew back with a little shudder when he saw her go in.
But he almost instantly recovered himself, and followed her into the house, and up the stairs. And there in bed, propped up by pillows, lay his deadly enemy, looking already like a corpse.
Clement eyed him a moment from the door, and thought of all the tower, the wood, the letter. Then he said in a low voice, “Pax vobiscum!” He trembled a little while he said it.
The sick man welcomed him as eagerly as his weak state permitted. “Thank Heaven, thou art come in time to absolve me from my sins, father, and pray for my soul, thou and thy brethren.”
“My son,” said Clement, “before absolution cometh confession. In which act there must be no reservation, as thou valuest thy soul's weal. Bethink thee, therefore, wherein thou hast most offended God and the Church, while I offer up a prayer for wisdom to direct thee.”
Clement then kneeled and prayed; and when he rose from his knees, he said to Ghysbrecht, with apparent calmness, “My son, confess thy sins.”
“Ah, father,” said the sick man, “they are many and great.”
“Great, then, be thy penitence, my son; so shalt thou find God's mercy great.”
Ghysbrecht put his hands together, and began to confess with every appearance of contrition.
He owned he had eaten meat in mid-Lent. He had often absented himself from mass on the Lord's day, and saints' days; and had trifled with other religious observances, which he enumerated with scrupulous fidelity.
When he had done, the friar said quietly, “'Tis well, my son, These be faults. Now to thy crimes, Thou hadst done better to begin with them.”
“Why, father, what crimes lie to my account if these be none?”
“Am I confessing to thee, or thou to me?” said Clement somewhat severely.
“Forgive me, father! Why, surely, I to you. But I know not what you call crimes.”
“The seven deadly sins, art thou clear of them?”
“Heaven forefend I should be guilty of them. I know them not by name.”
“Many do them all that cannot name them. Begin with that one which leads to lying, theft, and murder.”
“I am quit of that one, any way. How call you it?”
“AVARICE, my son.”
“Avarice? Oh, as to that, I have been a saving man all my day; but I have kept a good table, and not altogether forgotten the poor. But, alas, I am a great sinner, Mayhap the next will catch me, What is the next?”
“We have not yet done with this one. Bethink thee, the Church is not to be trifled with.”
“Alas! am I in a condition to trifle with her now? Avarice? Avarice?”
He looked puzzled and innocent.
“Hast thou ever robbed the fatherless?” inquired the friar.
“Me? robbed the fatherless?” gasped Ghysbrecht; “not that I mind.”
“Once more, my son, I am forced to tell thee thou art trifling with the Church. Miserable man! another evasion, and I leave thee, and fiends will straightway gather round thy bed, and tear thee down to the bottomless pit.”
“Oh, leave me not! leave me not!” shrieked the terrified old man. “The Church knows all. I must have robbed the fatherless. I will confess. Who shall I begin with? My memory for names is shaken.”
The defence was skilful, but in this case failed.
“Hast thou forgotten Floris Brandt?” said Clement stonily.
The sick man reared himself in bed in a pitiable state of terror. “How knew you that?” said he.
“The Church knows many things,” said Clement coldly, “and by many ways that are dark to thee, Miserable impenitent, you called her to your side, hoping to deceive her, You said, 'I will not confess to the cure but to some friar who knows not my misdeeds. So will I cheat the Church on my deathbed, and die as I have lived,' But God, kinder to thee than thou art to thyself, sent to thee one whom thou couldst not deceive. He has tried thee; He was patient with thee, and warned thee not to trifle with Holy Church; but all is in vain; thou canst not confess; for thou art impenitent as a stone. Die, then, as thou hast lived. Methinks I see the fiends crowding round the bed for their prey. They wait but for me to go. And I go.”
He turned his back; but Ghysbrecht, in extremity of terror, caught him by the frock. “Oh, holy man, mercy! stay. I will confess all, all. I robbed my friend Floris, Alas! would it had ended there; for he lost little by me; but I kept the land from Peter his son, and from Margaret, Peter's daughter. Yet I was always going to give it back; but I couldn't, I couldn't.”
“Avarice, my son, avarice, Happy for thee 'tis not too late.”
“No; I will leave it her by will. She will not have long to wait for it now; not above a month or two at farthest.”
“For which month's possession thou wouldst damn thy soul for ever, Thou fool!”
The sick man groaned, and prayed the friar to be reasonable.
The friar firmly, but gently and persuasively, persisted, and with infinite patience detached the dying man's gripe from another's property. There were times when his patience was tried, and he was on the point of thrusting his hand into his bosom and producing the deed, which he had brought for that purpose; but after yesterday's outbreak he was on his guard against choler; and to conclude, he conquered his impatience; he conquered a personal repugnance to the man, so strong as to make his own flesh creep all the time he was struggling with this miser for his soul; and at last, without a word about the deed, he won upon him to make full and prompt restitution.
How the restitution was made will be briefly related elsewhere: also certain curious effects produced upon Ghysbrecht by it; and when and on what terms Ghysbrecht and Clement parted.
I promised to relate two acts of the latter, indicative of his mind.
This is one. The other is told in two words.
As soon as he was quite sure Margaret had her own, and was a rich woman—
He disappeared.
It was the day after that terrible scene: the little house in the Hoog Straet was like a grave, and none more listless and dejected than Catherine, so busy and sprightly by nature, After dinner, her eyes red with weeping, she went to the convent to try and soften Gerard, and lay the first stone at least of a reconciliation.
It was some time before she could make the porter understand whom she was seeking. Eventually she learned he had left late last night, and was not expected back, She went sighing with the news to Margaret. She found her sitting idle, like one with whom life had lost its savour; she had her boy clasped so tight in her arms, as if he was all she had left, and she feared some one would take him too. Catherine begged her to come to the Hoog Straet.
“What for?” sighed Margaret. “You cannot but say to yourselves, she is the cause of all.”
“Nay, nay,” said Catherine, “we are not so ill-hearted, and Eli is so fond on you; you will maybe soften him.”
“Oh, if you think I can do any good, I'll come,” said Margaret, with a weary sigh.
They found Eli and a carpenter putting up another name in place of Cornelis and Sybrandt's; and what should that name be but Margaret Brandt's.
With all her affection for Margaret, this went through poor Catherine like a knife. “The bane of one is another's meat,” said she.
“Can he make me spend the money unjustly?” replied Margaret coldly.
“You are a good soul,” said Catherine. “Ay, so best, sith he is the strongest.”
The next day Giles dropped in, and Catherine told the story all in favour of the black sheep, and invited his pity for them, anathematized by their brother, and turned on the wide world by their father. But Giles's prejudices ran the other way; he heard her out, and told her bluntly the knaves had got off cheap; they deserved to be hanged at Margaret's door into the bargain, and dismissing them with contempt, crowed with delight at the return of his favourite. “I'll show him,” said he, “what 'tis to have a brother at court with a heart to serve a friend, and a head to point the way.”
“Bless thee, Giles,” murmured Margaret softly.
“Thou wast ever his stanch friend, dear Giles,” said little Kate; “but alack, I know not what thou canst do for him now.”
Giles had left them, and all was sad and silent again, when a well-dressed man opened the door softly, and asked was Margaret Brandt here.
“D'ye hear, lass? You are wanted,” said Catherine briskly. In her the Gossip was indestructible.
“Well, mother,” said Margaret listlessly, “and here I am.”
A shuffling of feet was heard at the door, and a colourless, feeble old man was assisted into the room. It was Ghysbrecht Van Swieten. At sight of him Catherine shrieked, and threw her apron over her head, and Margaret shuddered violently, and turned her head swiftly away, not to see him.
A feeble voice issued from the strange visitor's lips, “Good people, a dying man hath come to ask your forgiveness.”
“Come to look on your work, you mean,” said Catherine, taking down her apron and bursting out sobbing. “There, there, she is fainting; look to her, Eli, quick.”
“Nay,” said Margaret, in a feeble voice, “the sight of him gave me a turn, that is all, Prithee, let him say his say, and go; for he is the murderer of me and mine.”
“Alas,” said Ghysbrecht, “I am too feeble to say it standing and no one biddeth me sit down.”
Eli, who had followed him into the house, interfered here, and said, half sullenly, half apologetically, “Well, burgomaster, 'tis not our wont to leave a visitor standing whiles we sit. But man, man, you have wrought us too much ill.” And the honest fellow's voice began to shake with anger he fought hard to contain, because it was his own house.
Then Ghysbrecht found an advocate in one who seldom spoke in vain in that family.
It was little Kate. “Father, mother,” said she, “my duty to you, but this is not well. Death squares all accounts, And see you not death in his face? I shall not live long, good friends; and his time is shorter than mine.”
Eli made haste and set a chair for their dying enemy with his own hands. Ghysbrecht's attendants put him into it. “Go fetch the boxes,” said he. They brought in two boxes, and then retired, leaving their master alone in the family he had so cruelly injured.
Every eye was now bent on him, except Margaret's. He undid the boxes with unsteady fingers, and brought out of one the title-deeds of a property at Tergou. “This land and these houses belonged to Floris Brandt, and do belong to thee of right, his granddaughter. These I did usurp for a debt long since defrayed with interest. These I now restore their rightful owner with penitent tears. In this other box are three hundred and forty golden angels, being the rent and fines I have received from that land more than Floris Brandt's debt to me, I have kept it compt, still meaning to be just one day; but Avarice withheld me, pray, good people, against temptation! I was not born dishonest: yet you see.”
“Well, to be sure!” cried Catherine. “And you the burgomaster! Hast whipt good store of thieves in thy day. However,” said she, on second thoughts, “'tis better late than never, What, Margaret, art deaf? The good man hath brought thee back thine own. Art a rich woman. Alack, what a mountain o' gold!”
“Bid him keep land and gold, and give me back my Gerard, that he stole from me with his treason,” said Margaret, with her head still averted.
“Alas!” said Ghysbrecht, “would I could, what I can I have done. Is it nought? It cost me a sore struggle; and I rose from my last bed to do it myself, lest some mischance should come between her and her rights.”
“Old man,” said Margaret, “since thou, whose idol is pelf, hast done this, God and the saints will, as I hope, forgive thee. As for me, I am neither saint nor angel, but only a poor woman, whose heart thou hast broken, Speak to him, Kate, for I am like the dead.”
Kate meditated a little while; and then her soft silvery voice fell like a soothing melody upon the air, “My poor sister hath a sorrow that riches cannot heal, Give her time, Ghysbrecht; 'tis not in nature she should forgive thee all. Her boy is fatherless; and she is neither maid, wife, nor widow; and the blow fell but two days syne, that laid her heart a bleeding.”
A single heavy sob from Margaret was the comment to these words.
“Therefore, give her time! And ere thou diest, she will forgive thee all, ay, even to pleasure me, that haply shall not be long behind thee, Ghysbrecht. Meantime, we, whose wounds be sore, but not so deep as hers, do pardon thee, a penitent and a dying man; and I, for one, will pray for thee from this hour; go in peace!”
Their little oracle had spoken; it was enough. Eli even invited him to break a manchet and drink a stoup of wine to give him heart for his journey.
But Ghysbrecht declined, and said what he had done was a cordial to him, “Man seeth but a little way before him, neighbour. This land I clung so to it was a bed of nettles to me all the time. 'Tis gone; and I feel happier and livelier like for the loss on't.”
He called his men, and they lifted him into the litter.
When he was gone Catherine gloated over the money. She had never seen so much together, and was almost angry with Margaret, for “sitting out there like an image.” And she dilated on the advantages of money.
And she teased Margaret till at last she prevailed on her to come and look at it.
“Better let her be, mother,” said Kate, “How can she relish gold, with a heart in her bosom liker lead?” But Catherine persisted.
The result was, Margaret looked down at all her wealth with wondering eyes. Then suddenly wrung her hands and cried with piercing anguish, “TOO LATE! TOO LATE!” And shook off her leaden despondency, only to go into strong hysterics over the wealth that came too late to be shared with him she loved.
A little of this gold, a portion of this land, a year or two ago, when it was as much her own as now; and Gerard would have never left her side for Italy or any other place.
“Too late! Too late!”
Not many days after this came the news that Margaret Van Eyck was dead and buried. By a will she had made a year before, she left all her property, after her funeral expenses and certain presents to Reicht Heynes, to her dear daughter Margaret Brandt, requesting her to keep Reicht as long as unmarried.
By this will Margaret inherited a furnished house, and pictures and sketches that in the present day would be a fortune: among the pictures was one she valued more than a gallery of others.
It represented “A Betrothal.” The solemnity of the ceremony was marked in the grave face of the man, and the demure complacency of the woman. She was painted almost entirely by Margaret Van Eyck, but the rest of the picture by Jan. The accessories were exquisitely finished, and remain a marvel of skill to this day. Margaret Brandt sent word to Reicht to stay in the house till such time as she could find the heart to put foot in it, and miss the face and voice that used to meet her there; and to take special care of the picture “in the little cubboord:” meaning the diptych.
The next thing was, Luke Peterson came home, and heard that Gerard was a monk.
He was like to go mad with joy. He came to Margaret, and said—“heed, mistress. If he cannot marry you I can.”
“You?” said Margaret. “Why, I have seen him.”
“But he is a friar.”
“He was my husband, and my boy's father long ere he was a friar. And I have seen him, I've seen him.”
Luke was thoroughly puzzled. “I'll tell you what,” said he; “I have got a cousin a lawyer. I'll go and ask him whether you are married or single.”
“Nay, I shall ask my own heart, not a lawyer. So that is your regard for me; to go making me the town talk, oh, fie!”
“That is done already without a word from me.”
“But not by such as seek my respect. And if you do it, never come nigh me again.”
“Ay,” said Luke, with a sigh, “you are like a dove to all the rest; but you are a hardhearted tyrant to me.”
“'Tis your own fault, dear Luke, for wooing me. That is what lets me from being as kind to you as I desire, Luke, my bonny lad, listen to me. I am rich now; I can make my friends happy, though not myself. Look round the street, look round the parish. There is many a quean in it fairer than I twice told, and not spoiled with weeping. Look high; and take your choice. Speak you to the lass herself, and I'll speak to the mother; they shall not say thee nay; take my word for't.”
“I see what ye mean,” said Luke, turning very red. “But if I can't have your liking, I will none o' your money. I was your servant when you were poor as I; and poorer. No; if you would liever be a friar's leman than an honest man's wife, you are not the woman I took you for: so part we withouten malice: seek you your comfort on yon road, where never a she did find it yet, and for me, I'll live and die a bachelor. Good even, mistress.”
“Farewell, dear Luke; and God forgive you for saying that to me.”
For some days Margaret dreaded, almost as much as she desired, the coming interview with Gerard. She said to herself, “I wonder not he keeps away a while; for so should I.” However, he would hear he was a father; and the desire to see their boy would overcome everything. “And,” said the poor girl to herself, “if so be that meeting does not kill me, I feel I shall be better after it than I am now.”
But when day after day went by, and he was not heard of, a freezing suspicion began to crawl and creep towards her mind. What if his absence was intentional? What if he had gone to some cold-blooded monks his fellows, and they had told him never to see her more? The convent had ere this shown itself as merciless to true lovers as the grave itself.
At this thought the very life seemed to die out of her.
And now for the first time deep indignation mingled at times with her grief and apprehension. “Can he have ever loved me? To run from me and his boy without a word! Why, this poor Luke thinks more of me than he does.”
While her mind was in this state, Giles came roaring. “I've hit the clout; our Gerard is Vicar of Gouda.”
A very brief sketch of the dwarf's court life will suffice to prepare the reader for his own account of this feat. Some months before he went to court his intelligence had budded. He himself dated the change from a certain 8th of June, when, swinging by one hand along with the week's washing on a tight rope in the drying ground, something went crack inside his head; and lo! intellectual powers unchained. At court his shrewdness and bluntness of speech, coupled with his gigantic voice and his small stature, made him a Power: without the last item I fear they would have conducted him to that unpopular gymnasium, the gallows. The young Duchess of Burgundy, and Marie the heiress apparent, both petted him, as great ladies have petted dwarfs in all ages; and the court poet melted butter by the six-foot rule, and poured enough of it down his back to stew Goliah in. He even amplified, versified, and enfeebled certain rough and ready sentences dictated by Giles.
The centipedal prolixity that resulted went to Eli by letter, thus entitled—
“The high and puissant Princess Marieof Bourgogne her lytel jantilman hyscomplaynt of y' Coort, andpraise of a rusticall lyfe, versificated, and empapyredby me the lytel jantilman's right lovyngeand obsequious servitor, etc.”
But the dwarf reached his climax by a happy mixture of mind and muscle; thus:
The day before a grand court joust he challenged the Duke's giant to a trial of strength. This challenge made the gravest grin, and aroused expectation.
Giles had a lofty pole planted ready, and at the appointed hour went up it like a squirrel, and by strength of arm made a right angle with his body, and so remained: then slid down so quickly, that the high and puissant princess squeaked, and hid her face in her hands, not to see the demise of her pocket-Hercules.
The giant effected only about ten feet, then looked ruefully up and ruefully down, and descended, bathed in perspiration to argue the matter.
“It was not the dwarf's greater strength, but his smaller body.”
The spectators received this excuse with loud derision. There was the fact, the dwarf was great at mounting a pole: the giant only great at excuses. In short Giles had gauged their intellects: with his own body no doubt.
“Come,” said he, “an ye go to that, I'll wrestle ye, my lad, if so be you will let me blindfold your eyne.”
The giant, smarting under defeat, and thinking he could surely recover it by this means, readily consented.
“Madam,” said Giles, “see you yon blind Samson? At a signal from me he shall make me a low obeisance, and unbonnet to me.”
“How may that be, being blinded?” inquired a maid of honour.
“I'll wager on Giles for one,” said the princess.
“That is my affair.”
When several wagers were laid pro and con, Giles hit the giant in the bread-basket. He went double (the obeisance), and his bonnet fell off.
The company yelled with delight at this delicate stroke of wit, and Giles took to his heels. The giant followed as soon as he could recover his breath and tear off his bandage. But it was too late; Giles had prepared a little door in the wall, through which he could pass, but not a giant, and had coloured it so artfully, it looked like a wall; this door he tore open, and went headlong through, leaving no vestige but this posy, written very large upon the reverse of his trick door—
Long limbs, big body, panting witBy wee and wise is bet and bit
After this Giles became a Force.
He shall now speak for himself.
Finding Margaret unable to believe the good news, and sceptical as to the affairs of Holy Church being administered by dwarfs, he narrated as follows:
“When the princess sent for me to her bedroom as of custom, to keep her out of languor, I came not mirthful nor full of country dicts, as is my wont, but dull as lead.
“'Why, what aileth thee?' quo' she. 'Art sick?' 'At heart,' quo' I. 'Alas, he is in love,' quo' she. Whereat five brazen hussies, which they call them maids of honour, did giggle loud. 'Not so mad as that,' said I, 'seeing what I see at court of women folk.'
“'There, ladies,' quo' the princess, 'best let him a be. 'Tis a liberal mannikin, and still giveth more than he taketh of saucy words.'
“'In all sadness,' quo' she, 'what is the matter?'
“I told her I was meditating, and what perplexed me was, that other folk could now and then keep their word, but princes never.
“'Heyday,' says she, 'thy shafts fly high this morn.' I told her, 'Ay, for they hit the Truth.'
“She said I was as keen as keen; but it became not me to put riddles to her, nor her to answer them. 'Stand aloof a bit, mesdames,' said she, 'and thou speak withouten fear;' for she saw I was in sad earnest.
“I began to quake a bit; for mind ye, she can doff freedom and don dignity quicker than she can slip out of her dressing-gown into kirtle of state. But I made my voice so soft as honey (wherefore smilest?), and I said 'Madam, one evening, a matter of five years agone, as ye sat with your mother, the Countess of Charolois, who is now in heaven, worse luck, you wi' your lute, and she wi' her tapestry, or the like, do ye mind there came came into ye a fair youth with a letter from a painter body, one Margaret Van Eyck?”
“She said she thought she did, 'Was it not a tall youth, exceeding comely?'
“'Ay, madam,' said I; 'he was my brother.'
“'Your brother?' said she, and did eye me like all over, (What dost smile at?”)
“So I told her all that passed between her and Gerard, and how she was for giving him a bishopric; but the good countess said, 'Gently, Marie! he is too young; and with that they did both promise him a living: 'Yet,' said I, 'he hath been a priest a long while, and no living. Hence my bile.'
“'Alas!' said she, ''tis not by my good will; for all this thou hast said is sooth, and more. I do remember my dear mother said to me, “See thou to it if I be not here.”' So then she cried out, 'Ay, dear mother, no word of thine shall ever fall to the ground.'
“I, seeing her so ripe, said quickly, 'Madam, the Vicar of Gouda died last week.' (For when ye seek favours of the great, behoves ye know the very thing ye aim at.)
“'Then thy brother is vicar of Gouda,' quo' she, 'so sure as I am heiress of Burgundy and the Netherlands. Nay, thank me not, good Giles,' quo' she, 'but my good mother. And I do thank thee for giving of me somewhat to do for her memory. And doesn't she fall a weeping for her mother? And doesn't that set me off a-snivelling for my good brother that I love so dear, and to think that a poor little elf like me could yet speak in the ear of princes, and make my beautiful brother vicar of Gouda; eh, lass, it is a bonny place, and a bonny manse, and hawthorn in every bush at spring-tide, and dog-roses and eglantine in every summer hedge. I know what the poor fool affects, leave that to me.”
The dwarf began his narrative strutting to and fro before Margaret, but he ended it in her arms; for she could not contain herself, but caught him, and embraced him warmly. “Oh, Giles,” she said, blushing, and kissing him, “I cannot keep my hands off thee, thy body it is so little, and thy heart so great. Thou art his true friend. Bless thee! bless thee! bless thee! Now we shall see him again. We have not set eyes on him since that terrible day.”
“Gramercy, but that is strange,” said Giles. “Maybe he is ashamed of having cursed those two vagabones, being our own flesh and blood, worse luck.”
“Think you that is why he hides?” said Margaret eagerly;
“Ay, if he is hiding at all. However, I'll cry him by bellman.
“Nay, that might much offend him.”
“What care I? Is Gouda to go vicarless and the manse in nettles?”
And to Margaret's secret satisfaction, Giles had the new vicar cried in Rotterdam and the neighbouring towns. He easily persuaded Margaret that in a day or two Gerard would be sure to hear, and come to his benefice. She went to look at his manse, and thought how comfortable it might be made for him, and how dearly she should love to do it.
But the days rolled on, and Gerard came neither to Rotterdam nor Gouda. Giles was mortified, Margaret indignant, and very wretched. She said to herself, “Thinking me dead, he comes home, and now, because I am alive, he goes back to Italy, for that is where he has gone.”
Joan advised her to consult the hermit of Gouda.
“Why, sure he is dead by this time.”
“Yon one, belike. But the cave is never long void; Gouda ne'er wants a hermit.”
But Margaret declined to go again to Gouda on such an errand, “What can he know, shut up in a cave? less than I, belike. Gerard hath gone back t' Italy. He hates me for not being dead.”
Presently a Tergovian came in with a word from Catherine that Ghysbrecht Van Swieten had seen Gerard later than any one else. On this Margaret determined to go and see the house and goods that had been left her, and take Reicht Heynes home to Rotterdam. And as may be supposed, her steps took her first to Ghysbrecht's house. She found him in his garden, seated in a chair with wheels. He greeted her with a feeble voice, but cordially; and when she asked him whether it was true he had seen Gerard since the fifth of August, he replied, “Gerard no more, but Friar Clement. Ay, I saw him; and blessed be the day he entered my house.”
He then related in his own words his interview with Clement.
He told her, moreover, that the friar had afterwards acknowledged he came to Tergou with the missing deed in his bosom on purpose to make him disgorge her land; but that finding him disposed towards penitence, he had gone to work the other way.
“Was not this a saint; who came to right thee, but must needs save his enemy's soul in the doing it?”
To her question, whether he had recognized him, he said, “I ne'er suspected such a thing. 'Twas only when he had been three days with me that he revealed himself, Listen while I speak my shame and his praise.
“I said to him, 'The land is gone home, and my stomach feels lighter; but there is another fault that clingeth to me still;' then told I him of the letter I had writ at request of his brethren, I whose place it was to check them. Said I, 'Yon letter was writ to part two lovers, and the devil aiding, it hath done the foul work. Land and houses I can give back, but yon mischief is done for ever.' 'Nay,' quoth he, 'not for ever, but for life. Repent it then while thou livest.' 'I shall,' said I, 'but how can God forgive it? I would not,' said I, 'were I He.'
“'Yet will He certainly forgive it,' quoth he; 'for He is ten times more forgiving than I am, and I forgive thee.' I stared at him; and then he said softly, but quavering like, 'Ghysbrecht, look at me closer. I am Gerard, the son of Eli.' And I looked, and looked, and at last, lo! it was Gerard. Verily I had fallen at his feet with shame and contrition, but he would not suffer me. 'That became not mine years and his, for a particular fault. I say not I forgive thee without a struggle,' said he, 'not being a saint. But these three days thou hast spent in penitence, I have worn under thy roof in prayer; and I do forgive thee.' Those were his very words.”
Margaret's tears began to flow, for it was in a broken and contrite voice the old man told her this unexpected trait in her Gerard. He continued, “And even with that he bade me farewell.
“'My work here is done now,' said he. I had not the heart to stay him; for let him forgive me ever so, the sight of me must be wormwood to him. He left me in peace, and may a dying man's blessing wait on him, go where he will. Oh, girl, when I think of his wrongs, and thine, and how he hath avenged himself by saving this stained soul of mine, my heart is broken with remorse, and these old eyes shed tears by night and day.”
“Ghysbrecht,” said Margaret, weeping, “since he hath forgiven thee, I forgive thee too: what is done, is done; and thou hast let me know this day that which I had walked the world to hear. But oh, burgomaster, thou art an understanding man, now help a poor woman, which hath forgiven thee her misery.”
She then told him all that had befallen, “And,” said she, “they will not keep the living for him for ever. He bids fair to lose that, as well as break all our hearts.”
“Call my servant,” cried the burgomaster, with sudden vigour.
He sent him for a table and writing materials, and dictated letters to the burgomasters in all the principal towns in Holland, and one to a Prussian authority, his friend. His clerk and Margaret wrote them, and he signed them. “There,” said he, “the matter shall be despatched throughout Holland by trusty couriers, and as far as Basle in Switzerland; and fear not, but we will soon have the vicar of Gouda to his village.”
She went home animated with fresh hopes, and accusing herself of ingratitude to Gerard. “I value my wealth now,” said she.
She also made a resolution never to blame his conduct till she should hear from his own lips his reason.
Not long after her return from Tergou a fresh disaster befell. Catherine, I must premise, had secret interviews with the black sheep, the very day after they were expelled; and Cornelis followed her to Tergou, and lived there on secret contributions, but Sybrandt chose to remain in Rotterdam. Ere Catherine left, she asked Margaret to lend her two gold angels. “For,” said she, “all mine are spent.” Margaret was delighted to lend them or give them; but the words were scarce out of her mouth ere she caught a look of regret and distress on Kate's face, and she saw directly whither her money was going. She gave Catherine the money, and went and shut herself up with her boy. Now this money was to last Sybrandt till his mother could make some good excuse for visiting Rotterdam again, and then she would bring the idle dog some of her own industrious savings.
But Sybrandt, having gold in his pocket, thought it inexhaustible: and being now under no shadow of restraint, led the life of a complete sot; until one afternoon, in a drunken frolic, he climbed on the roof of the stable at the inn he was carousing in, and proceeded to walk along it, a feat he had performed many times when sober. But now his unsteady brain made his legs unsteady, and he rolled down the roof and fell with a loud thwack on to an horizontal paling, where he hung a moment in a semicircle; then toppled over and lay silent on the ground, amidst roars of laughter from his boon companions. When they came to pick him up he could not stand; but fell down giggling at each attempt.
On this they went staggering and roaring down the street with him, and carried him at great risk of another fall to the shop in the Hoog Straet. For he had babbled his own shame all over the place.
As soon as he saw Margaret he hiccupped out, “Here is the doctor that cures all hurts, a bonny lass.” He also bade her observe he bore her no malice, for he was paying her a visit sore against his will. “Wherefore, prithee send away these drunkards, and let you and me have t'other glass, to drown all unkindness.”
All this time Margaret was pale and red by turns at sight of her enemy and at his insolence; but one of the men whispered what had happened, and a streaky something in Sybrandt's face arrested her attention.
“And he cannot stand up, say you?”
“A couldn't just now. Try, comrade! Be a man now!”
“I am a better man than thou,” roared Sybrandt. “I'll stand up and fight ye all for a crown.”
He started to his feet, and instantly rolled into his attendant's arms with a piteous groan. He then began to curse his boon companions, and declare they had stolen away his legs. “He could feel nothing below the waist.”
“Alas, poor wretch,” said Margaret. She turned very gravely to the men, and said, “Leave him here. And if you have brought him to this, go on your knees, for you have spoiled him for life. He will never walk again; his back is broken.”
The drunken man caught these words, and the foolish look of intoxication fled, and a glare of anguish took its place. “The curse,” he groaned; “the curse!”
Margaret and Reicht Heynes carried him carefully, and laid him on the softest bed.
“I must do as he would do,” whispered Margaret. “He was kind to Ghysbrecht.”
Her opinion was verified, Sybrandt's spine was fatally injured; and he lay groaning and helpless, fed and tended by her he had so deeply injured.
The news was sent to Tergou, and Catherine came over.
It was a terrible blow to her. Moreover, she accused herself as the cause. “Oh, false wife; oh, weak mother,” she cried, “I am rightly punished for my treason to my poor Eli.”
She sat for hours at a time by his bedside rocking herself in silence, and was never quite herself again; and the first grey hairs began to come in her poor head from that hour.
As for Sybrandt, all his cry was now for Gerard, He used to whine to Margaret like a suffering hound, “Oh, sweet Margaret, oh, bonny Margaret, for our Lady's sake find Gerard, and bid him take his curse off me. Thou art gentle, thou art good; thou wilt entreat for me, and he will refuse thee nought.”
Catherine shared his belief that Gerard could cure him, and joined her entreaties to his, Margaret hardly needed this. The burgomaster and his agents having failed, she employed her own, and spent money like water. And among these agents poor Luke enrolled himself. She met him one day looking very thin, and spoke to him compassionately. On this he began to blubber, and say he was more miserable than ever; he would like to be good friends again upon almost any terms.
“Dear heart,” said Margaret sorrowfully, “why can you not say to yourself, now I am her little brother, and she is my old, married sister, worn down with care? Say so, and I will indulge thee, and pet thee, and make thee happier than a prince.”
“Well, I will,” said Luke savagely, “sooner than keep away from you altogether. But above all give me something to do. Perchance I may have better luck this time.”
“Get me my marriage lines,” said Margaret, turning sad and gloomy in a moment.
“That is as much as to say, get me him! for where they are, he is.”
“Not so. He may refuse to come nigh me; but certes he will not deny a poor woman, who loved him once, her lines of betrothal. How can she go without them into any honest man's house?”
“I'll get them you if they are in Holland,” said Luke.
“They are as like to be in Rome,” replied Margaret.
“Let us begin with Holland,” observed Luke prudently.
The slave of love was furnished with money by his soft tyrant, and wandered hither and thither, Coopering, and carpentering, and looking for Gerard. “I can't be worse if I find the vagabone,” said he, “and I may be a hantle better.”
The months rolled on, and Sybrandt improved in spirit, but not in body; he was Margaret's pensioner for life; and a long-expected sorrow fell upon poor Catherine, and left her still more bowed down; and she lost her fine hearty bustling way, and never went about the house singing now; and her nerves were shaken, and she lived in dread of some terrible misfortune falling on Cornelis. The curse was laid on him as well as Sybrandt. She prayed Eli, if she had been a faithful partner all these years, to take Cornelis into his house again, and let her live awhile at Rotterdam.
“I have good daughters here,” said she; “but Margaret is so tender, and thoughtful, and the little Gerard, he is my joy; he grows liker his father every day, and his prattle cheers my heavy heart; and I do love children.”
And Eli, sturdy but kindly, consented sorrowfully.
And the people of Gouda petitioned the duke for a vicar, a real vicar. “Ours cometh never nigh us,” said they, “this six months past; our children they die unchristened, and our folk unburied, except by some chance comer.” Giles' influence baffled this just complaint once; but a second petition was prepared, and he gave Margaret little hope that the present position could be maintained a single day.
So then Margaret went sorrowfully to the pretty manse to see it for the last time, ere it should pass for ever into stranger's hands.
“I think he would have been happy here,” she said, and turned heart-sick away.
On their return, Reicht Heynes proposed to her to go and consult the hermit.
“What,” said Margaret, “Joan has been at you. She is the one for hermits. I'll go, if 'tis but to show thee they know no more than we do.” And they went to the cave.
It was an excavation partly natural, partly artificial, in a bank of rock overgrown by brambles. There was a rough stone door on hinges, and a little window high up, and two apertures, through one of which the people announced their gifts to the hermit, and put questions of all sorts to him; and when he chose to answer, his voice came dissonant and monstrous out at another small aperture.
On the face of the rock this line was cut—
Felix qui in Domino nixus ab orbe fugit.
Margaret observed to her companion that this was new since she was here last.
“Ay,” said Reicht, “like enough;” and looked up at it with awe. Writing even on paper she thought no trifle; but on rock! She whispered, “Tis a far holier hermit than the last; he used to come in the town now and then, but this one ne'er shows his face to mortal man.”
“And that is holiness?”
“Ay, sure.”
“Then what a saint a dormouse must be?”
“Out, fie, mistress. Would ye even a beast to a man?”
“Come, Reicht,” said Margaret, “my poor father taught me overmuch, So I will e'en sit here, and look at the manse once more. Go thou forward and question thy solitary, and tell me whether ye get nought or nonsense out of him, for 'twill be one.”
As Reicht drew near the cave a number of birds flew out of it., She gave a little scream, and pointed to the cave to show Margaret they had come thence, On this Margaret felt sure there was no human being in the cave, and gave the matter no further attention, She fell into a deep reverie while looking at the little manse.
She was startled from it by Reicht's hand upon her shoulder, and a faint voice saying, “Let us go home.”
“You got no answer at all, Reicht,” said Margaret calmly.
“No, Margaret,” said Reicht despondently. And they returned home.
Perhaps after all Margaret had nourished some faint secret hope in her heart, though her reason had rejected it, for she certainly went home more dejectedly.
Just as they entered Rotterdam, Reicht said, “Stay! Oh, Margaret, I am ill at deceit; but 'tis death to utter ill news to thee; I love thee so dear.”
“Speak out, sweetheart,” said Margaret. “I have gone through so much, I am almost past feeling any fresh trouble.”
“Margaret, the hermit did speak to me.”
“What, a hermit there? among all those birds.”
“Ay; and doth not that show him a holy man?”
“I' God's name, what said he to thee, Reicht?”
“Alas! Margaret, I told him thy story, and I prayed him for our Lady's sake tell me where thy Gerard is, And I waited long for an answer, and presently a voice came like a trumpet: 'Pray for the soul of Gerard the son of Eli!”
“Ah!”
“Oh, woe is me that I have this to tell thee, sweet Margaret! bethink thee thou hast thy boy to live for yet.”
“Let me get home,” said Margaret faintly.
Passing down the Brede Kirk Straet they saw Joan at the door. Reicht said to her, “Eh, woman, she has been to your hermit, and heard no good news.”
“Come in,” said Joan, eager for a gossip.
Margaret would not go in; but she sat down disconsolate on the lowest step but one of the little external staircase that led into Joan's house, and let the other two gossip their fill at the top of it.
“Oh,” said Joan, “what yon hermit says is sure to be sooth, He is that holy, I am told, that the very birds consort with him.”
“What does that prove?” said Margaret deprecatingly. “I have seen my Gerard tame the birds in winter till they would eat from his hand.”
A look of pity at this parallel passed between the other two, but they were both too fond of her to say what they thought.
Joan proceeded to relate all the marvellous tales she had heard of this hermit's sanctity; how he never came out but at night, and prayed among the wolves, and they never molested him; and now he bade the people not bring him so much food to pamper his body, but to bring him candles.
“The candles are to burn before his saint,” whispered Reicht solemnly.
“Ay, lass; and to read his holy books wi'. A neighbour o' mine saw his hand come out, and the birds sat thereon and pecked crumbs. She went for to kiss it, but the holy man whippit it away in a trice. They can't abide a woman to touch 'en, or even look at 'em, saints can't.”
“What like was his hand, wife? Did you ask her?”
“What is my tongue for, else? Why, dear heart, all one as yourn; by the same token a had a thumb and four fingers.”
“Look ye there now.”
“But a deal whiter nor yourn and mine.”
“Ay, ay.”
“And main skinny.”
“Alas.”
“What could ye expect? Why, a live upon air, and prayer, and candles.”
“Ah, well,” continued Joan; “poor thing, I whiles think 'tis best for her to know the worst. And now she hath gotten a voice from heaven, Or almost as good, and behoves her pray for his soul. One thing, she is not so poor now as she was; and never fell riches to a better hand; and she is only come into her own for that matter, so she can pay the priest to say masses for him, and that is a great comfort.”
In the midst of their gossip, Margaret, in whose ears it was all buzzing, though she seemed lost in thought, got softly up, and crept away with her eyes on the ground, and her brows bent.
“She hath forgotten I am with her,” said Reicht Heynes ruefully.
She had her gossip out with Joan, and then went home.
She found Margaret seated cutting out a pelisse of grey cloth, and a cape to match. Little Gerard was standing at her side, inside her left arm, eyeing the work, and making it more difficult by wriggling about, and fingering the arm with which she held the cloth steady, to all which she submitted with imperturbable patience and complacency, Fancy a male workman so entangled, impeded, worried!
“Ot's that, mammy?”
“A pelisse, my pet.”
“Ot's a p'lisse?”
“A great frock. And this is the cape to't.”
“Ot's it for?”
“To keep his body from the cold; and the cape is for his shoulders, or to go over his head like the country folk. 'Tis for a hermit.”
“Ot's a 'ermit?”
“A holy man that lives in a cave all by himself.”
“In de dark?”
“Ay, whiles.”
“Oh.”
In the morning Reicht was sent to the hermit with the pelisse, and a pound of thick candles.
As she was going out of the door Margaret said to her, “Said you whose son Gerard was?”
“Nay, not I.”
“Think, girl! How could he call him Gerard, son of Eli, if you had not told him?”
Reicht persisted she had never mentioned him but as plain Gerard. But Margaret told her flatly she did not believe her; at which Reicht was affronted, and went out with a little toss of the head. However, she determined to question the hermit again, and did not doubt he would be more liberal in his communication when he saw his nice new pelisse and the candles.
She had not been gone long when Giles came in with ill news.
The living of Gouda would be kept vacant no longer.
Margaret was greatly distressed at this.
“Oh, Giles,” said she, “ask for another month. They will give thee another month, maybe.”
He returned in an hour to tell her he could not get a month.
“They have given me a week,” said he. “And what is a week?”
“Drowning bodies catch at strawen,” was her reply. “A week? a little week?”
Reicht came back from her errand out of spirits. Her oracle had declined all further communication. So at least its obstinate silence might fairly be interpreted.
The next day Margaret put Reicht in charge of the shop, and disappeared all day. So the next day, and so the next. Nor would she tell any one where she had been. Perhaps she was ashamed. The fact is, she spent all those days on one little spot of ground. When they thought her dreaming, she was applying to every word that fell from Joan and Reicht the whole powers of a far acuter mind than either of them possessed.
She went to work on a scale that never occurred to either of them. She was determined to see the hermit, and question him face to face, not through a wall. She found that by making a circuit she could get above the cave, and look down without being seen by the solitary. But when she came to do it, she found an impenetrable mass of brambles. After tearing her clothes, and her hands and feet, so that she was soon covered with blood, the resolute, patient girl took out her scissors and steadily snipped and cut till she made a narrow path through the enemy. But so slow was the work that she had to leave it half done. The next day she had her scissors fresh ground, and brought a sharp knife as well, and gently, silently, cut her way to the roof of the cave. There she made an ambush of some of the cut brambles, so that the passers-by might not see her, and couched with watchful eye till the hermit should come out. She heard him move underneath her. But he never left his cell. She began to think it was true that he only came out at night.
The next day she came early and brought a jerkin she was making for little Gerard, and there she sat all day, working, and watching with dogged patience.
At four o'clock the birds began to feed; and a great many of the smaller kinds came fluttering round the cave, and one or two went in. But most of them, taking a preliminary seat on the bushes, suddenly discovered Margaret, and went off with an agitated flirt of their little wings. And although they sailed about in the air, they would not enter the cave. Presently, to encourage them, the hermit, all unconscious of the cause of their tremors, put out a thin white hand with a few crumbs in it, Margaret laid down her work softly, and gliding her body forward like a snake, looked down at it from above; it was but a few feet from her. It was as the woman described it, a thin, white hand.
Presently the other hand came out with a piece of bread, and the two hands together broke it and scattered the crumbs.
But that other hand had hardly been out two seconds ere the violet eyes that were watching above dilated; and the gentle bosom heaved, and the whole frame quivered like a leaf in the wind.
What her swift eye had seen I leave the reader to guess. She suppressed the scream that rose to her lips, but the effort cost her dear. Soon the left hand of the hermit began to swim indistinctly before her gloating eyes; and with a deep sigh her head drooped, and she lay like a broken lily.
She was in a deep swoon, to which perhaps her long fast to-day and the agitation and sleeplessness of many preceding days contributed.
And there lay beauty, intelligence, and constancy, pale and silent, And little that hermit guessed who was so near him. The little birds hopped on her now, and one nearly entangled his little feet in her rich auburn hair.
She came back to her troubles. The sun was set. She was very cold, She cried a little, but I think it was partly from the remains of physical weakness. And then she went home, praying God and the saints to enlighten her and teach her what to do for the best.
When she got home she was pale and hysterical, and would say nothing in answer to all their questions but her favourite word, “We are wading in deep waters.”
The night seemed to have done wonders for her.
She came to Catherine, who was sitting sighing by the fireside, and kissed her, and said—
“Mother, what would you like best in the world?”